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HINTS FOR YOUNG 
WRITERS 



\ 



HINTS FOR YOUNG 
WRITERS 



BY 

ORISON SWETT MARDEN 

n 

AUTHOR OP "PUSHING TO THE FRONT," "PEACE, 
POWER AND PLENTY," ETC. 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



^ 






Copyright, 1914, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 



Published September, 1914 



JUL 15 1914 

©CLA374803 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Writer To-Day 7 

Live, Then Write 11 

The Personality in Your Book 26 

Fixed Habit of Work 35 

Choosing the Right Word 39 

Use Simple Language 49 

Conciseness 59 

Readability 72 

Keep Close to Life 83 

Observation and Self-Expression 89 

The Capacity for Taking Pains 99 

Style and Spirit 120 

Commercialization of the Literary 

Profession 128 

The Reserve Behind Expression 134 



[5] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG 
WRITERS 

THE WRITER TO-DAY 

FOR centuries it was thought that 
oratory was the greatest human 
achievement, the most perfect ex- 
pression of personal power. It was 
long supposed that no other form of 
self-expression developed a man so 
thoroughly and so effectively, or un- 
folded his powers so quickly, as the ef- 
fort to think upon his feet and to ex- 
press himself before an audience. But 
many of the laurels that formerly went 
to the orator are now going to the 
writer, and I doubt whether there is any 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

other form of self-expression or of 
achievement which gives such complete 
satisfaction as the writer's profession. 

I know of nothing which so tends to 
accuracy of thinking and self-expres- 
sion as the writing habit. It increases 
one's vocabulary and one's facility of 
expression. The very act of writing a 
thing tends to fasten it upon the mem- 
ory, to impress it, to clutch it in the 
mind. 

It is a process of perpetual discov- 
ery and surprises. No writer can know 
just what is coming into his thoughts. 
He is always tapping new veins, new 
ores of resourcefulness, for there is no 
limit to the visualizing, picturing pow- 
ers of the imagination. Writing is a 
perpetual delight, a constant tonic. 
[8] 



THE WRITER TO-DAY 

Though the creative process tires the 
brain, after he has rested, the author 
returns to his work with the same zest, 
the same enthusiasm and love as be- 
fore. 

The writer has many advantages 
over the public speaker. He can wait 
upon his moods; he can write when he 
feels like it; and he knows that he can 
burn as many manuscripts as he likes 
if they do not suit him. There are not 
a thousand eyes upon him. He does 
not have a great audience criticiz- 
ing every sentence, weighing every 
thought. He does not have to step 
upon the scales of every listener's 
judgment to be weighed, as does the 
orator. A man may write as listlessly 
as he pleases, use as much or as little 
[9] 



HINTS FOB YOUNG WRITERS 

— =— = 
of his brain energy as he likes; no one 

is watching him. His pride and van- 
ity are not touched, and what he writes 
may never be seen by any one; also 
there is always a chance for revision. 

While the literary profession is per- 
haps the most poorly paid of any 
professional calling to-day, and those 
who rise to such eminence that their 
names command attention and pos- 
sess advertising value for their pub- 
lishers, are few and far between, yet 
we do not measure the value of a vo- 
cation by the amount of money that 
one gets out of it. Many of the best 
things in life are not remunerative 
from the money standpoint, but are of 
immense value to society. 



[10] 






LIVE, THEN WRITE 

WHEN Harriet Beecher Stowe 
captured the world with "Un- 
cle Tom's Cabin" her pub- 
lishers demanded a new tale, and she 
wrote "Dred," a tale of the Dismal 
Swamp. Some witty paragrapher 
said: "Mrs. Stowe wrote 'Uncle Tom's 
Cabin' because she had a book to write, 
but she wrote 'Dred' because she had 
to write a book," 

It makes all the difference in the 
world, whether you write because you 
must express yourself or because you 
are ordered to go and produce. Noth- 
ing is immortal which does not throb 
with eternal principle. No manuscript 

en] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

will live which has not first lived vig- 
orously in the author. 

Do you expect your reader to thrill 
with emotion? You cannot set the 
cords of his heart vibrating when your 
own were still and dumb. You can 
only create in the reader the duplicate 
of your own emotions. Action and re- 
action are equal. There is no art by 
which you can produce in the reader 
what you did not experience in your- 
self. If you have nothing to give, no 
life or beauty or truth, what you write 
will not be read. It all depends upon 
the fullness, the sweetness, the human 
interest, which you can inject into it; 
and it must be your own — you must be 
yourself, or die in your book. 

The world is hungry for life, more 
[12] 



LIFE, THEN WRITE 

life; it is interested in realities, in hu- 
man experiences, in human struggles. 
There is nothing that interests man 
like man — personalities, human nature. 
If you are ambitious to be a great 
writer keep in touch with life. Do not 
allow the great veins of practical af- 
fairs to be cut off. The blood must 
come warm from the great heart of 
humanity. You must keep in touch 
with the great life arena. Mere the- 
ories do not go very far; it is life that 
counts. 

If editors were asked what, in a 
word, is the greatest defect, the fatal 
weakness in the majority of manu- 
scripts which come to them, they would 
say their lack of life, — and, lacking 
life, they lack interest, vivacity, charm, 
[13] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

and fascination. One may outline the 
sentences and they analyze perfectly; 
they balance; the words are well 
chosen, but there is no great under- 
lying throbbing pulse of life. 

"Wouldst thou write a living book 
thou must first live." 

Do you put yourself into what you 
write? Does it take hold upon the 
very center of your life? Have you 
ground all your experience into paint, 
and projected it into the picture? You 
must live your story before you write 
it. Good composition throbs with life 
wherever you touch it. There is not 
a word too many or too few. Wher- 
ever you cut it, it bleeds, — it is so full 
of life-blood. Every word you come to 
is electric, like the touch of a live wire. 
[14] 



LIVE, THEN WRITE 

"I do not want to write literature, I 
want to write life," said the late Frank 
Norris. Most young writers try to 
write literature when the world wants 
life. It is that which must always be 
uppermost, it must dominate the mind. 
The motive must pulsate with the 
warm life-blood, or the book, the ar- 
ticle will be cold, mechanical, and 
lifeless. 

The compositions of many writers 
so lack incident, color, character, in- 
terest, that nobody wants to read them. 
They leave the Hamlet out of their 
play and then wonder why people do 
not come to see it. 

The explanation of how some writers 
— like the late Owen Kildare, author 
of "My Mamie Rose" — who have had 
[15] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

no training whatever in the schools, 
and who are ignorant of books, have 
written that which will live, is that they 
have written because they could not 
help it. There was something pent up 
within them which they simply had to 
tell, and they told it with all the en- 
ergy and naturalness which they pos- 
sessed, without trying to see how well 
they could balance their sentences. It 
was a spontaneous expression of that 
which they could not keep in any 
longer. This is the difference be- 
tween writing life and writing litera- 
ture. If the people who have written 
things which the world will not let 
die had tried to write literature, their 
works would have been dead long 
ago. 

[16] 



LIVE, THEN WRITE 

We are, most of us, straining to 
effect some great thing: something far 
off and unusual, and we do not see the 
wonders at our very door. The sim- 
plest and the commonest things in life 
fail to captivate us, just as the stars 
remain unknown to the majority and 
uninvestigated because we can see 
them nearly every night. 

Many unknown writers would find 
fame and fortune, if, like Bunyan and 
Milton and Dickens and George Eliot 
and Scott and Emerson, they would 
write out of their own lives, if they 
would put into their manuscripts the 
things they have seen, common, every- 
day things, things that thej r have felt, 
that they have known. It is life 
thoughts that stir and convince, that 
[17] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

move and persuade, that carry their 
iron particles into the blood. 

Young writers often make the mis- 
take of choosing unusual topics. But 
the human heart loves the common 
things, the things which touch the 
every-day life. It is the daily experi- 
ence, the commonplace glorified, which 
interest people most. The human heart 
never tires of friendship, love, suffer- 
ing, struggle, victory and human hap- 
piness. The author who has that subtle 
quality that can see the uncommonness 
in the common, is the author that lives. 

No one can put into his book any- 
thing greater than that which lives 
within himself. Most writers are dry 
and uninteresting, because their lives 
are pinched and lean and starved. 
[18] 



LIVE, THEN WRITE 

When they give their books to the 
world they are like a lean, cadaverous 
professor advertising to give lectures 
on physical culture. Their poverty of 
thought and stinginess of soul are poor 
advertisements of their wares. 

It is the rich life that makes the rich 
book, the rich picture. Michael An- 
gelo's pictures are immortal, because 
his life had immortality in it. Raphael 
can never die, because there was im- 
mortality in his character; he spread 
his life on his canvas. 

An author's spontaneous production 
partakes of his very life's blood. He 
is painting himself, just as the great 
artist paints himself into his picture, — 
spreads his thoughts, his feelings, his 
experiences, upon the canvas. 
[19] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

You cannot write immortal things 
unless there is immortality in your 
character ; you cannot write inspiringly 
unless you are giving yourself; you 
must ring true yourself or there will be 
a false, jarring note in your writings. 

I have listened to preachers and ora- 
tors who had a beautiful flow of lan- 
guage and great charm of speech, but 
they never convinced me; they could 
not get my confidence. There was 
lack of character, lack of a real man, 
behind the eloquence. 

We often feel the same thing re- 
garding a writer. We may enjoy read- 
ing him, but there is something lacking 
in the suggestion left in our conscious- 
ness — a lack of character in the man. 
We may never have seen him, never 
[20] 



LIVE, THEN WRITE 

have heard anything against him, but 
we instinctively feel his deficiencies. 
The author can only write into the 
book what is in himself. We can only 
radiate our reality, express the truth 
of ourselves. 

Character is the very foundation- 
stone of a great author. There must 
be a great man back of the pen or he 
will never carry weight in the world. 

If you expect to interest the world 
in your book, you must be interest- 
ing yourself; your mind must be bal- 
anced, disciplined, stored with all that 
is rich and beautiful. It must be an 
electric battery, or you can never thrill 
your readers. It is the mind behind 
the words that makes a great book. 
Your mental larder must be stored 
[21] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

with an abundance of rich things, or 
you cannot expect your guests to en- 
joy the feast; they will not come a sec- 
ond time to feed on husks. 

It would be very helpful to young 
writers if they could know the thoughts 
which run through an editor's brain as 
he reads their manuscripts. "Poor fel- 
low," he often says to himself, as he 
glances through the dry, dreary desert 
pages, "he has mistaken his calling. 
There is nothing but dust in this man. 
He has no message for the world. 
There is nothing in this writer that is 
struggling for expression. He does 
not write because he cannot help it, 
because there is something in him 
which will speak, which must speak; he 
is merely trying to make himself say 
[22] 



LIVE, THEN WRITE 

something; he is not effervescing with 
ideas that will not down, with emo- 
tions that he cannot repress, or with 
thoughts that will not stay." 

An experienced editor knows that it 
is not necessary to eat an entire ox 
to test the quality of the beef. A single 
paragraph anywhere in a manuscript 
gives him a clue to the quality of the 
whole. If the blood courses freely 
through that paragraph, he knows that 
there is something in the rest of it. If, 
however, the pulse of the writing is so 
faint that he cannot detect it after he 
feels for it in several places; if the 
vitality is so low, its circulation so fee- 
ble that he can scarcely tell whether it 
is dead or alive, he will drop the manu- 
script and turn to some other. The 
[23] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

editor or reader is always feeling for 
the bounding pulse which indicates a 
strong, robust vitality. 

An experienced, analytical reader 
could reproduce you from your book. 
He could pick out the countries you 
have visited, the experiences you have 
had, the extent of your education; he 
could give you a picture of your en- 
vironment; he could tell whether ne- 
cessity had been your spur, or whether 
you had been reared in luxury. He 
could tell by the poverty or the wealth 
of your language, by the extent of 
your vocabulary, what degree of cul- 
ture you had obtained. He could pick 
out j^our associates and give a picture 
of your intimates, for all you can do is 
to put yourself into your book, whether 
[24] 



LIVE, THEN WRITE 

your ideals are high or low flying; he 
does not need to see you in person, he 
sees you in your book. 



[25] 



THE PERSONALITY IN YOUR 
BOOK 

IN a certain author's recent work we 
can detect a decided tired feeling. 
The work is evidently the result of 
a forced brain. There is in it a lack 
of spontaneity, an absence of sharp, 
clean-cut sentences and the grasping 
thought. It gives evidence of a flabby 
brain. There is in the whole book a 
lack of vigor, of robustness of thought. 
In an interview with Theodore 
Roosevelt he told me that he owes 
everything to his active life and vig- 
orous outdoor exercise. He said that 
his career would have been absolutely 
impossible without this training; that 
[26] 



THE PERSONALITY 

he owes much of his success to his ex- 
perience as a cowboy in the West, and 
that he believes thoroughly in building 
up the body in every possible way; not 
especially in order to become an ath- 
lete — he said that he never did any- 
thing well in the athletic line, except, 
possibly, w T restling — but rather to be- 
come strong for the sake of the reflex 
influence upon the mind. 

A strong mind must be backed up 
by a strong physique — by an overflow 
of animal spirits. Great things must 
appear to have been done easily. The 
straining of a weak, low vitality to do 
great things is not effective. The 
tracks of effort — the evidences of strain 
and stress — must not be in any com- 
manding achievement. 
[27] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

You may be sure that your weak- 
ness, whatever it is, will crop out in 
your writing. The best thing you will 
ever do will be done by your vital or 
healthy side. No amount of will power 
can compensate for a fagged mind in a 
weak body. A vigorous pen must be 
guided by a vigorous nature. Weak, 
bloodless composition will never stir a 
reader. There must be a great, strong 
pulse back of it all. If you have not 
the grit in yourself it will not flow 
from your pen. 

No one likes to read the vaporings 
of a feeble thinker. The average 
reader can tell very quickly whether a 
writer is in strong, vigorous condition, 
or jaded from dissipation, overworked 
or has a weak constitution. The pub- 
[28] 



THE PERSONALITY 

lie is merciless; it demands that a man 
be ever at the top of his condition. 
Readers do not take any excuses; that 
you were out late nights, that you 
overloaded your stomach at a banquet, 
or that you have some physical weak- 
ness. 

Many writers do not appreciate the 
great fact that readers will draw out of 
every book just what the writer put 
into it — his moods, his physical condi- 
tion, his mental and moral status, his 
melancholy or his mirth, his joy or 
his sorrow, his uplifting optimism or his 
blackening pessimism, the tonic of his 
courage, or the depression of his de- 
spair. Each reader has the same feel- 
ing which the author had ; that is, if he 
is tired and jaded— if his brain is 
[29] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

fagged when he writes — no matter how 
weighty his words or how brilliant his 
thought, the reader has the tired feel- 
ing, too. In other words, we have no 
power to communicate anything ex- 
cept what we feel ourselves. We ra- 
diate our own feelings. Others about 
us feel what we are — not what we pre- 
tend to be, but the truth about us. 

The moment the mind begins to tire, 
and you feel your faculties begin to 
lag, stop writing. I do not believe 
in the "midnight oil" business for writ- 
ers. The man who, with a wet towel 
about his head, forces himself to pro- 
duce thoughts for a book or an article, 
must expect the reader to resort to the 
same means to keep himself awake 
while reading it. 

[30] 



THE PERSONALITY 

Freshness, spontaneity and vigor are 
absolutely essential to all good com- 
position. No amount of ability or 
learning in an author can take their 
place. There must be a crispness, or 
freshness, together with the vigor of 
thought which fascinates and holds the 
reader, or he will lose interest. 

Often an author fails because his 
writings lack these essential qualities. 
Many of the most instructive books 
ever written lie on the shelves unread 
because they are labored or heavy. 
Learn to express yourself forcibly and 
yet with a certain lightness of touch, 
which takes a subtle and yet firm hold 
on every reader. You may never have 
had a chance at him before. Hold on 
to him. Let him feel, when he strikes 
[31] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

a thought of yours in a book or an arti- 
cle, that there is a gripping power back 
of it. Let him feel the sentences bite. 

If your personality is to be felt in 
its maximum force in your writing, 
you must be at your best physically 
when at work. A tired, jaded, weak, 
exhausted man does not radiate force 
or power. Neither he nor his work 
will make a deep or lasting impression. 

The writer's mental health is not 
only dependent on his physical condi- 
tion but, more than in less tempera- 
mental persons, it rests upon environ- 
mental influences. People with artis- 
tic temperaments, writers, and minds 
that create, are, as a rule, affected more, 
crushed more, by little annoyances, 
than people with a matter-of-fact tern- 
[32] 



THE PERSONALITY 

perament. This is the price that the 
artistic nature pays for its special 
talent. 

There are plenty of literary workers 
who think that they are already doing 
all that they can stand, who could dou- 
ble their mental output, if they would 
only learn the art of protecting the 
faculties they are using. If they are 
using creative faculties, they should 
avoid confusion in their environment, 
which destroys the power to concen- 
trate. The mind that is creative must 
be free from anxiety, from worry. 
Things which would not disturb others 
will often throw them completely off 
their balance. Too much detail injures 
the creative mind. The man who is 
doing creative work must have har- 
[33] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

mony. Discord is fatal to originality. 

Many an author with ability fails 
because he does not put himself in a 
position where he can get absolute 
freedom from constant interruptions, 
from little domestic worries and an- 
noyances. Many authors make the 
mistake of trying to write at home, 
without having a secluded den or room 
which is away from noise and inter- 
ruptions from children or servants. 

In other words, the man who is to 
succeed in literature, who would do 
anything distinctive, must put himself 
in a position to use his creative facul- 
ties to the best possible advantage. An 
attractive, harmonious environment is 
a great stimulus to the creative mind. 

[34] 



FIXED HABIT OF WORK 

THE creative process is the 
mind's gymnasium. To set 
aside a certain time or times 
each day, when you marshal to the front 
the best that is in you, when you fling 
the weight of your whole ambition into 
your concentrated thought and try to 
express it with power by your pen, 
your brush, or your oratory, will cause 
you to grow. You will feel yourself 
expanding, your horizon receding. 
You will feel a thrill of satisfaction 
which never comes from copying, imi- 
tating, or reproducing from memory. 

Such constant exercise is essential to 
facility, dexterity, ease, freedom in 
[35] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

composition, which are everything to 
the writer. If he does not keep in per- 
petual practice, the art will slip away 
from him. There will be something 
lacking in his composition. It will be 
stiff, unpolished; traces of effort will 
be visible — and true art erases every 
vestige of effort. 

People who only work when they 
feel like it, lose a great deal of inspi- 
ration, because when the mind has 
formed the habit of doing the same 
things at about the same time every 
day it usually drops into the right 
mood for it at the appointed hour, and 
no time is lost in waiting for favorable 
moods. 

I know a successful writer who once 
wrote with the greatest irregularity, 
[36] 



FIXED HABIT OF WORK 

because he said he could not work ex- 
cept when the fit was on him, when he 
was just in the right mood. The re- 
sult was that sometimes he would wait 
for weeks for this mood. After a 
while he became discouraged by having 
to wait on the vagaries of his mood, 
and resolved that, come what would, 
he was going to sit down at his desk, 
take his pen and begin to write at just 
such a time every day, whether he felt 
like doing so or not. In a few months 
he found that when the time came for 
writing he was usually in the mood, 
and his power of concentration grew 
with the regularity of his habit. 

Previous to this he would sometimes 
sit up all night writing when the mood 
was upon him, fearing that it might 
[37] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

be a long time before it would come 
again; and the irregular life began to 
tell upon his health, The fixed habit 
of regular work soon restored his 
nervous energy. 

As a rule, the brain, if kept healthy, 
will measure up pretty nearly to what 
is expected of it. There is everything 
in expecting it to work at an appointed 
time. When the writer has formed a 
fixed habit of work the mind ought to 
go to its task as fresh, as enthusias- 
tic and expectant as a vigorous athlete 
in superb condition goes to a race. 

There is no happiness or satisfaction 
quite equal to the normal exercise of 
a splendidly trained mind at work, 
whether it is planning business, writing 
a book, or painting a picture. 
[38] 



CHOOSING THE RIGHT 
WORD 

I HAVE found it at last!" ex- 
claimed a famous writer, one day, 
while walking in company with a 
friend. "Found what?" asked his 
friend. "Why, that word I have been 
hunting for days." 

Luther said: "Words are living 
creatures with hands and feet," and 
French's lectures on words make one 
realize that they are not mere symbols, 
but are vital. As Emerson has said: 
"Words are fossil history." For a 
given idea there is only one right word 
to use; all others are merely near- 
[39] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

right, and fail by just so much in ex- 
pressing the real thought. 

It is strict attention to the choice of 
words and their arrangement and the 
greatest care in bringing out the deli- 
cate shades of meaning that make pol- 
ished writers and orators. A great 
writer or speaker uses words as a great 
artist uses colors and tints. A word 
which does not precisely fit the thought 
offends his taste as much as green 
where blue is required would offend 
the taste of an artist. Some authors 
wait for hours or days — leaving blanks 
in their manuscripts — for the right 
words to convey the exact shading of 
their thoughts. When Kipling does 
not find a word just suited to his 
meaning, he invents one, usually so 
[40] 



THE RIGHT WORD 

expressive that it becomes a permanent 
addition to our language. 

The language even of educated peo- 
ple often bears the marks of a pinched 
vocabulary, which indicates the lack of 
a wide range of reading or a large 
experience in the practise of elegant 
conversation. I have in mind a man 
who failed to reach the success for 
which he had undoubted ability because 
of a restricted, narrow, limited vocab- 
ulary. He was constantly repeating 
himself. He thought in a circle, and 
could not express his ideas in fresh, 
vigorous language, because of his pov- 
erty of words. 

The best writers seem to appreciate 
the fact that words have distinct flav- 
ors, that they are not merely mechan- 
[41] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

ical blocks for language building, but 
that they have a liquidity through 
which the thought flows. 

The picture drawn by Barrie, in 
" Sentimental Tommy/' of his hero 
hunting for a particular word is not 
overdrawn. It shows the budding 
genius of a future writer. Tommy 
Sandys is given a last chance to win a 
scholarship. He failed at the regular 
examination, but in this second con- 
test — the writing of the best essay on 
a given subject — Tommy's friends 
were confident of his success, his fame 
as a writer of letters and compositions 
having spread far beyond the village 
of Thrums. Tommy's heart beat joy- 
fully. He already counted the schol- 
arship his. He began to write, and 
[42] 



THE RIGHT WORD 

his pen traveled on without pause to 
about the middle of his second page. 
Then he paused. He wanted a single 
word in the Scotch dialect to express 
an idea. He thought of several which 
would pass muster, and which, indeed, 
the examiners would not question, but 
the one which expressed the exact 
shade of meaning he wished to convey 
would not come. It was "on the tip 
of his tongue," as he afterward ex- 
plained, but still evaded him. ■ An hour 
went by almost before the boy was 
conscious of it. Everything was for- 
gotten — the examination and the con- 
sequences hanging on its results, the 
time, the place, the people, all but the 
missing word. With a gasp he came 
to a realization of conditions around 
[43] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

him when he was asked to hand in his 
essay. It was only begun. It could not 
even be considered in the competition. 
Yet Tommy could have outdistanced 
all competitors had he been satisfied 
to use a word that would do fairly 
well. But the artist, the genius in 
him, could be satisfied with nothing 
but the exact one, and after being dis- 
missed in disgrace he returned to poke 
his head inside the door and exclaim, 
triumphantly, "I ken it noo; it's 
puckle" 

Slipshod writers who use any word 
which happens to come to them, re- 
gardless of whether or not it conveys 
the precise shade of thought they have 
in mind, because- they are too careless 
or indolent to search for the right 
[44] 



THE RIGHT WORD 

word, never become great authors. 
Many articles in newspapers and peri- 
odicals are contributed by writers of 
this class. Many of the "best-selling" 
books, even if lauded by review- 
ers, more enthusiastic than critical, 
as "great books," often contain glar- 
ing inaccuracies and misapplied 
words. 

"On a single word," said Wendell 
Phillips, "has hung the destiny of na- 
tions." No one knows better than he 
did the exact value of words. He was 
easily the foremost forensic orator 
America has produced, and his emi- 
nence was due to the high standard 
he set for himself. Every word ex- 
actly expressed the shade of his 
thought; every phrase was of due 
[45] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

length and cadence; every sentence 
was perfectly balanced. 

A man who can express his thoughts 
in simple, transparent language — in 
words that exactly fit his ideas — no 
more, no less — is a rare being. Accu- 
racy of detail is one of the character- 
istic traits of a genius, whom Dickens 
has somewhere described as "a being 
who pays attention to trifles." 

But remember that no synonym 
taken from Roget or from Soule 
belongs to you until it is a vital part 
of your vocabulary. You cannot select 
a word and use it, because you are told 
that it is a synonym, while your knowl- 
edge of the word lacks intimacy and 
your use of it lacks flexibility. 

As a matter of fact the English Ian- 
[46] 



THE RIGHT WORD 

guage has no exact synonyms. Inevit- 
ably if there were two words in Eng- 
lish expressing exactly the same mean- 
ing, one of them would be taken and 
the other left. You will find the study 
of the rise and decay of words a most 
fascinating one. Who uses the word 
nocent? And yet nocent, or harmful, 
existed before the word innocent, or 
not harmful, but was crowded out to 
give place to a more positive word. 

Young people are often too much 
in a hurry to discriminate finely and 
choose delicately the words which ex- 
actly express their thoughts. Yet the 
words should exactly fit the idea. 
Clean-cut fittingness and aptness 
strike an editor immediately. He can 
tell quickly whether a writer is an 
[47] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

artist or a sloven. He knows whether 
or not you have picked up your words 
without fully understanding their 
meaning. Make a practise of look- 
ing up in a good dictionary every 
word you do not thoroughly under- 
stand. Learn to go to the bottom of 
things yourself. A habit of investigat- 
ing the meaning of words, by looking 
up their synonyms in dictionaries or 
thesauruses, does not involve a waste 
of time, for a rich, well-rounded voca- 
bulary is one of the finest possessions 
of life. 



[48] 



USE SIMPLE LANGUAGE 

IT was Horace Greeley's method 
to wield the blue pencil on all 
fancy writing. A reporter's story 
read: "The conflagration painted the 
heavens a flaming yellow." Mr. Gree- 
ley said: "Mr. Smith, what you meant 
to say was, 'the flames lit up the sky,' 
wasn't it?" "Yes, sir." "Then say 
what you meant to say," and jab went 
the blue pencil. 

A beginner in the art of writing or 
speaking often aims at great ornamen- 
tation and elaboration, thinking that 
much filigree-work and many words of 
great length and sonorousness make a 
[49] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

stronger impression than plain, simple 
language. It is quite the reverse. 
Simplicity, as well as precision, is es- 
sential to the best speaking or writing. 
As masterpieces of literature, the Bible 
and the works of Shakespeare are pre- 
eminent. A young writer who aims at 
perfection can do no better than take 
these as his models. To show how 
elaboration or ornamentation would 
destroy the sublimity and effectiveness 
of Bible narration, G. P. Quackenbos 
transforms the verse in Genesis which 
describes the creation of light — "And 
God said, Let there be light ; and there 
was light" — into "The sovereign ar- 
biter of nature, by the potent energy 
of a single word, commanded light to 
exist, and immediately it sprang into 
[50] 



USE SIMPLE LANGUAGE 

being." The stately lines of "Paradise 
Lost" are simplicity itself. 

In many of the manuscripts that 
go to editors to-day the thought of 
the writer is subterranean. It seldom 
comes to the surface. The editor has 
a feeling that there is something there 
if he could only get it out; but the 
writer's mind was clouded; the style is 
involved and overwrought; the expres- 
sion is not clear, the language is ob- 
scure. 

The trouble with most writers is that 
they are "addicted to language" — their 
thought is covered up with words, 
words, words. They should take the 
advice of Tryon Edwards: "Have 
something to say, and stop when you're 
done." 

[51] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

You may be really conscious that 
you have a message for the world, but 
disappointed because you have failed 
to work your thought out on the sur- 
face sufficiently to enable readers, who 
have not been trained to think deeply, 
to grasp it. Many writers burrow into 
their theme. They do not realize that 
the casual reader does not follow them 
in their burrowing into the depths of 
the subjects in which they have been 
absorbed for months and perhaps 
years. The result is, they shoot over 
their heads. Clergymen are constantly 
doing the same thing in their sermons. 
We are too apt to think that people 
are in the same position as ourselves, 
that they see things from the same 
viewpoint as we do. 
[52] 



USE SIMPLE LANGUAGE 

Play-writers often fail because their 
plots are too complicated for their 
audience. The majority of people who 
visit the theaters are not great thinkers ; 
they are hard workers, and in their 
leisure hours they want to be amused, 
and not made to think. Very few peo- 
ple go to the theater to be improved 
or to stimulate their brains. They 
want recreation. Nature is seeking 
compensation for the strain, for the 
wear and tear of the day's work. 

Easy reading comes from hard writ- 
ing. It is not an easy thing to work 
one's thought out from the depths of 
his mind and bring it to the surface 
and express it so simply and so force- 
fully that the reader cannot help tak- 
ing in the idea at a glance. 
[53] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

Authors have died wretchedly dis- 
appointed, of broken hearts, because 
ideas which enraptured their own souls 
fell flat upon the public mind. They 
were never able to understand the tre- 
mendous difference between the inter- 
est they themselves felt in their books 
and their cold, indifferent reception by 
the public. 

Many of the best books that have 
ever been written, containing much of 
the finest philosophy, the profoundest 
reasoning, lie dusty on book-shelves 
and in libraries, simply because the 
writers did not work their thought out 
upon the surface sufficiently to be 
taken in at a glance by the casual 
reader. The thought is buried under 
verbiage. There are plenty of good 
[54] 



USE SIMPLE LANGUAGE 

ideas in these volumes but the thought 
has never been mined; it is still in the 
ore. The thought-nuggets are still un- 
smelted. A few profound thinkers 
read these buried-thought books and 
set great value upon them, but un- 
fortunately the average reader, in this 
age of superficial thinking, only grasps 
the meaning that lies on the surface. 
If these great but unpopular writers 
would spend more time in expressing 
their thought simply, it would popu- 
larize their writings wonderfully. 

The greatest writers economize the 
reader's attention. They do not leave 
anything for the reader to do that they 
can possibly do for him. They do not 
cover up their thought by useless 
words or by circumlocution. It lies on 
[55] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

the surface in clear, simple, limpid 
language. 

The ever-living authors have ex- 
pressed their thoughts in transparent 
language. They have stripped the 
expression of their ideas of wordiness, 
of all superfluity. They have chosen 
words which exactly fit the thought. 
They have left no traces of anything 
perishable which time can corrode or 
affect, and this is why they live always. 

If I were to start out again as a 
writer, I would practise several hours 
every day for many months — in fact, 
I would keep this practise up for years, 
to see how much I could express, and 
how clearly, in the fewest words and 
in the simplest possible language. 
I would take several subjects which 
[56] 



USE SIMPLE LANGUAGE 

interested me. I would turn each over 
in my mind for a long time, and then, 
after I had thoroughly considered and 
mastered it, I would write with as 
much expression, strength and interest 
as I possibly could, and in the fewest 
words. In order to get the value of a 
fresh impression again, I would lay 
my manuscript aside for awhile and 
then take it up, read it over, think it 
over, and rewrite it, to see if I could 
not express the same thing more force- 
fully and interestingly, and in simpler, 
more transparent language. I would 
repeat this exercise many times for all 
my different subjects until I could not 
improve any one of my manuscripts 
in any single word. 

It is said that David Belasco's great 
[57] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

success as a producer of plays comes 
from his remarkable skill in theatrical 
surgery. He dissects every new play 
that comes to him as an anatomist 
would dissect the human body. He 
weighs every word, every sentence, 
every speech, eliminating every bit of 
dead-wood, every phrase and para- 
graph that does not have a definite 
bearing on the end in view. A play- 
wright, referring to Belasco's exami- 
nation of his plays, says: "From ten 
in the morning frequently till three the 
next morning we went through the 
play with microscopic care. Often we 
spent hours on a few lines, or a single 
speech." 



[58] 



CONCISENESS 

WHEN some one told Mark 
Twain that he had a long 
story to submit to him, 
Twain replied that he did not care 
how much a man said, if he said it in 
a few words. 

Conciseness, brevity of expression 
are characteristic of a great mind. 
Weak people use twice as many words 
as strong people. General Grant was 
a man of few words. Lincoln could 
put a great proposition into a brief 
sentence. Read the eighty lines of his 
Gettysburg speech. Not a single word 
could be eliminated without crippling 
the thought. It has the conciseness of 
[59] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

condensation. Great minds have ever 
been simple in their language and con- 
cise in their expression. 

There are comparatively few vol- 
umes which could not be compressed 
into a tenth of the space they fill and 
thus improve the expression of the 
thought without injury to the subject. 
Padded books do not live. It is only 
the pure thought that stands the test 
of years; that survives the, remorseless 
ravages of time which consigns to 
oblivion everything that is superficial, 
that is spurious, shoddy or sham. Only 
that which is genuine will live. 

Certain writers have what corre- 
sponds to loquaciousness in some con- 
versationalists. They talk on forever 
without saying much of anything. 
[60] 



CONCISENESS 



Many are like some of our railroads 
which have very poor terminal facili- 
ties. They string out their thoughts 
endlessly, until they tire out the reader 
and he loses all interest. The preface 
of some writers reminds one of a man 
who begins to run so far back from 
the ditch he is trying to jump across, 
that when he reaches it he is tired out, 
and has not strength enough to jump 
over. The reader is exhausted before 
he has finished the introduction. 

The young writer should not only 
aim, but should also strive for short 
words, short sentences, short para- 
graphs, short articles, short books. 
He should learn to condense every sen- 
tence to the minimum. 

I know of no experience so valuable 
[61] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

to a young writer as writing advertise- 
ments. It is an excellent training in 
brevity, conciseness and clearness of 
expression. Here is where one learns 
to get rid of all superfluous words, to 
choose words with discrimination and 
with fine shades of meaning. 

It is a splendid practise for young 
writers to imagine that what they write 
they are to cable across the sea at a 
shilling a word. They will be sure to 
be surprised to see how many ideas a 
few words can express. 

One of the best possible drills for the 
young writer is experience on a great 
daily. This involves actual contact 
with the thing itself; not theory, but 
realistic description of an accident, or 
whatever it may be, that he is sent 
[62] 



CONCISENESS 



to report. Here he touches life for 
the first time. Long words and com- 
plex sentences are mercilessly blue- 
penciled by the practical editor. The 
"cub" reporter soon learns to come 
down to pure principles — simplicity 
and accuracy of observation. He 
learns, perhaps for the first time, that 
he must not only look but must also 
see; that he must not only listen, but 
also hear. He must reproduce the 
thing as it occurs in the most simple, 
compact language; his word-painting 
must be done in a few effective strokes. 
He must take the shortest cut to ef- 
fectiveness; all redundancy, all super- 
fluous language, all meaningless words, 
no matter how high sounding or how 
beautiful they may ring in his ear, he 
[63] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

must cut down to the utmost brevity 
and simplicity. 

He may not recognize his first manu- 
scripts when the hard-headed, practical 
editor finishes with them, but he will 
learn a lesson which he will never for- 
get. 

A young reporter wired a New York 
editor that he had a good story but 
that it would take a couple of columns 
of space. The editor wired back, "See 
the story of creation told in about 
eight hundred words." The old-time 
reporter wrote to fill space; the new 
reporter writes to save it. This motto 
appears in the editorial office of a great 
newspaper: "Terseness, accuracy, 
terseness." There is no room to-day 
for the long-drawn-out writer. This 
[64] 



CONCISENESS 



is a boiling-down age. There is no 
room for the round-about man. Di- 
rectness is the watchword of our time. 
Remember that this is a strenuous 
time-saving age. People are too busy 
to wade through a lot of chaff to get 
a few kernels of wheat. Get the chaff 
out of your thought. Winnow your 
ideas. Only give your pure wheat 
thoughts to the public. If a young 
writer would only start out holding 
constantly in mind the determination 
to save the reader's time, to economize 
his attention by cutting out every use- 
less word, condensing everywhere, not 
only would he give himself a most help- 
ful training in composition, but also 
his articles and books would be read 
and praised. 

[65] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

It costs some magazines about two 
hundred and fifty dollars a page to 
place before the reader their literary 
material. A publisher cannot afford 
to spend two hundred and fifty dollars 
to market ten dollars' worth of ideas 
spread over a whole page, when they 
could have been expressed in a para- 
graph. If you are wondering why 
your articles come back from publish- 
ers, just try the experiment of rewrit- 
ing them in the shortest, sharpest, 
clearest, simplest, most effective way 
possible, and send them again. The 
chances are that you will receive a 
check, instead of "Returned with 
thanks.'' 

The literary aspirant can form no 
better habit than that of first writing 
[66] 



CONCISENESS 



down his ideas in the most concise lan- 
guage possible, afterward letting the 
manuscript stand long enough to en- 
able the writer to get a fresh impres- 
sion, then rewriting it until condensa- 
tion can be carried no farther without 
loss. 

Readers know, when they see the 
signature of a writer who has the 
reputation of boiling down his 
thoughts, that they will not waste 
time. 

Many a young writer has made a 
reputation by his first article or his first 
book, because, while he was in doubt 
whether the public would read what 
he wrote, he condensed, rewrote, re- 
cast, and cut out all superfluous mat- 
ter; but later, when the demand for his 
[67] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

work increased, he let hurried manu- 
scripts go out of his hands, thinking 
that people would read anything he 
might write, and soon he realized that 
his books remained unsold. 

Nothing else will kill a writer more 
quickly than an idea that the public 
will take anything he writes. 

Great writers and great orators have 
always developed the power of focus- 
ing their ideas in the simplest and most 
telling language. What a model of 
elegance is Lincoln's Gettysburg 
speech, which has the simplicity of 
Bunyan, the forceful imagination of 
Burns, and the sound reason of Wash- 
ington ! 

If you want to do substantial work, 
concentrate; and if you want to give 
[68] 



CONCISENESS 



others the benefit of your work, con- 
dense. 

"Would a pound of feathers fall to 
the ground as quickly as a pound of 
lead?" was the question asked a class, 
of which Gail Hamilton was a mem- 
ber. "Yes, if the feathers were rolled 
just as tightly," replied the future au- 
thor. Roll your arguments "tightly," 
that they may have weight. The leaden 
bullet is more fatal than when multi- 
plied into shot. 

"Genuine good taste," says Fenelon, 
"consists in saying much in a few 
words, in choosing among our thoughts, 
in having order and arrangement in 
what we say, and in speaking with 
composure." 

"If you would be pungent," says 
[69] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

Southey, "be brief; for it is with words 
as with sunbeams — the more they are 
condensed, the deeper they burn." 

"When one has no design but to 
speak plain truth," says Steele, "he 
may say a great deal in a very narrow 
compass." 

The fame of the Seven Wise Men 
of Greece rested largely upon a sin- 
gle sentence by each, of only two or 
three words. 

"The wisdom of nations lies in their 
proverbs." 

Gems are not reckoned by gross 
weight. The common air we beat aside 
with our breath, compressed, has the 
force of gunpowder, and will rend the 
solid rock. A gentle stream of persua- 
siveness may flow through the mind, 
[70] 



CONCISENESS 



and leave no sediment; let it come at 
a blow, as a cataract, and it sweeps all 
before it. Mere words are cheap and 
plenty enough; but ideas that rouse, 
and set multitudes thinking, come as 
gold from the mine. 

Begin very near where you mean 
to leave off. Brevity is the soul of 
wisdom as well as of wit. 



[71] 



READABILITY 

IT is useless to say that people ought 
to read good matter. If it does 
not interest them, they will refuse 
it. You can lead a horse to the water 
but you cannot make him drink. We 
can put the best reading into a man's 
hand but we cannot make him read un- 
less it appeals to him. 

Many a would-be lecturer has failed 
because he did not make a study of 
his audiences. He gave the same lec- 
ture to a cultivated audience, in a 
community where the standard of edu- 
cation was high, as he gave to an audi- 
ence of working people in a manufac- 
turing town. The writer likewise needs 
[72] 



READABILITY 

to know his audience. ~No author is 
big enough to make such a broad ap- 
peal as to be universally read. The 
writer, like the successful orator or 
editor, should enter into close fellow- 
ship with his public. He should under- 
stand his readers' predilections, their 
requirements, and publish things which 
will inspire them and interest them 
vitally. 

The great trouble with many aspir- 
ants in literature is that their words 
lack force and fire. They do not carry 
conviction. They do not make vivid 
pictures. They are characterless and 
energyless, like those who use them. 
The forceful writer must have the cour- 
age of his convictions. The timid per- 
son who veers this way and that, for 
[73] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

fear of what people will think of his 
work, never makes a vigorous writer. 
The element of timidity, hesitation, or 
fear in the mind of the writer will crop 
out in his writings. Fearlessness, how- 
ever, must be accompanied by good 
judgment, saneness; otherwise one will 
say rash, foolish, tactless and untimely 
things. When courage is combined 
with common sense, and the writer has 
facility of expression, he will not lack 
for readers. 

Few writers are able to inject such 
intellectual power and such vigor and 
force into their composition as to 
arouse and electrify the readers, so that 
they will become absorbed in their 
reading and forget everything else, 
even that they are on the earth. The 
[74] 



READABILITY 

really successful writer will infuse such 
life and enthusiasm into his writings 
that the reader will feel their magic 
spell for weeks or months. 

Some great man said that he was so 
affected by his reading of Homer, so 
carried away with the marvelous heroes 
of the story that they haunted him 
when he walked the city streets. Men 
and women looked to him like giants 
ten feet high. Everything seemed to 
be bigger, to take on larger propor- 
tions. It is the writer's problem, as 
much as the orator's, to arouse the am- 
bition, to stimulate men and women 
to higher and better ideals, to new 
resolutions to live the life worth while. 

In one respect, especially, the writer 
is in the same predicament as the ora- 
[75] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■iMM 

tor. He must first put his audience in 
a good humor, he has to entertain them, 
interest them or they will sneak out 
through the back door and disturb the 
meeting. If an article does not begin 
well, if it does not catch your atten- 
tion at once, if the reader has to wade 
through a lot of verbiage and dead- 
wood, it will not be popular. 

There is everything in not only get- 
ting a striking title for your book or 
article, but in getting striking titles 
for your chapter heads or divisions. 

Many a really great book has gone 
unread and the author has died disap- 
pointed, because of a dead title, a title 
which has no snap, no life; the title 
should pique the curiosity. 

" What's in a name?" is a very sug- 
[76] 



READABILITY 

gestive phrase. For the writer there 
is everything in a name; that is, if the 
writer has anything worth while to say. 
If not, even the best title will not save 
his work from oblivion. 

Some writers are like some salesmen, 
who can interest a prospective buyer, 
arouse and hold his enthusiasm and 
carry him along beautifully until he 
has almost persuaded him to buy, but 
they can't close, and they lose the cus- 
tomer. So some authors can introduce 
a subject beautifully, stir up the reader 
and arouse all his enthusiasm, until he 
resolves that he is going to do some- 
thing and be somebody worth while. 
When he puts down such a stirring 
book he feels many times larger than 
when he began it; he feels certain that 
[77] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

he is going to do great things. But 
his enthusiasm and zeal gradually cool 
and he finds himself dropping into his 
old lethargy. Many of these writers 
who stir the blood and inspire to heroic 
resolution leave the reader helpless to 
carry out their resolves, because they 
have not given the "how," they do not 
point out to the reader the ways and 
means of getting results; they leave 
him in the air. 

A great writer ought to be able to 
take a common, dry subject and make 
it vibrate with life and thrill the reader. 
He ought to be able to clothe it in 
language so fascinating that the reader 
could not close the book until he had 
finished it. 

Some writers are tantalizers. Every 
[78] 



READABILITY 

time we lay down a book of theirs we 
do so with regret; we want more. 
Authors like Dickens make us hungry 
for more. They are like a delicious, 
temptingly served dinner to a hungry 
man. They are appetizing writers. 
Others weary us, bore us. We read 
them from a sense of duty because they 
are instructive. We think they will be 
helpful, will add to our culture or en- 
lightenment, but they do not leave 
any impress on the mind. 

The test of a good book or a good 
article is that there is something in it 
that compels you to read it to the end. 
On many a winter's evening I have 
started to read a book with the deter- 
mination to stop reading at about nine 
or ten o'clock and retire for a good 
[79] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

night's rest, but have forgotten all 
about my resolution. The book was so 
intensely interesting, so fascinating, 
that I forgot all about my own exist- 
ence, and lived with the characters 
portrayed by the author in his work, 
conversed with the vivacious heroine, 
intrigued with the plotting villain, 
warned the hero of some terrible calam- 
ity, and saw the hero and heroine hap- 
pily married. When I reached the cli- 
max of the story, I would often find 
that the hands of the clock pointed to two 
or three in the morning. This shows 
how charmed one may become through 
the reading of a book that is actually 
alive. The characters seem to walk 
forth from its pages; the birds sing; 
we hear the babbling of the brook, the 
[80] 



READABILITY 

puffing of the train; we travel into 
foreign parts and visit historic places, 
view works of art ; speak to a Webster, 
a Washington, a Plato, or a Ruskin. 
The king and queen of a monarchical 
government confide their most intimate 
secrets to us; we take counsel with 
them; we receive the last word of ad- 
vice from a dying hero, as if it were 
actually intended for us. 

The author who can put this spirit of 
life into his writings will not seek in 
vain for an audience. 

Dion Boucicault, the playwright, in 
a lecture on writing for the stage, said : 
"There are just three things that I 
desire to emphasize as essential to the 
writing of a good play — the first is 
action, the second is action, and the 
[81] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

third is action/' It is the same in fic- 
tion. People do not want long-drawn- 
out descriptions of scenery, they do not 
want protracted monologues by hero 
or heroine, they want action, move- 
ment, life; and, in so far as the writer 
holds the mirror up to nature, in so far 
he will succeed and win his public. 



[82] 



KEEP CLOSE TO LIFE 

THE writer's main power comes 
from two sources — out of the 
depths of his own nature and 
from his experience with others, his 
contact with the world. If you would 
write for life you must not shut your- 
self out from life ; nor must you always 
live in it, for you will lose something 
in either extreme. 

No matter how hard a writer may 
study or how hard he may work, if 
he excludes himself too much from the 
world, he becomes one-sided, theoreti- 
cal, impractical. He is apt to run into 
fads and all sorts of vagaries. His 
knowledge lacks breadth, practicabil- 
[83] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

ity, and is too reflective. If, on the 
other hand, he lives too much with 
others, if he does not reflect enough, 
if he spends most of his time in social 
life, or in travel, his writings will lack 
that depth and richness which come 
from reflection, that mental power 
which is generated from great concen- 
tration. 

Yet intellect alone, however mas- 
terly, will not preserve a book from 
oblivion. Jonathan Edwards was an 
intellectual giant, but his works have 
never been read to any great extent, 
except by scholars. They are too mas- 
sive, too cumbersome, too involved. He 
lived too much in his study, he did not 
mingle with the world, did not touch 
human life at enough points. 
[84] 



KEEP CLOSE TO LIFE 

The old-time writer of the Middle 
Ages, who secluded himself in his 
study and never saw much of the 
world, has gone by. The demand to- 
day is for the practical as well as for 
the reflective. Any book to be popular 
must pulsate with warm human inter- 
est or, however deep and scholarly, it 
will be dry and uninteresting. The 
writings of some of the greatest minds 
that have ever lived are to-day unread 
because their authors lived secluded 
lives, did not mingle with the world at 
large. They were not students of hu- 
man nature. There was not enough 
life, not enough human interest in their 
books to preserve them from decay. 
They were too heavy, too ponderous, 
too reflective, too subjective. 
[85] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

A really great book must appeal to 
the masses, must be written in simple 
language. The author must mingle 
with men; he must be familiar with 
their life, with their aspirations, their 
hopes, their trials, their struggles. 
Dickens never grows old because he 
lived with the people. 

One could name several authors who 
have been very popular for a long time, 
but who are rapidly deteriorating be- 
cause their very success has tempted 
them to get out of the swim of things 
into semi-retirement, and they are 
gradually running out of raw stock 
without knowing it. They feel sure 
that their first books were not nearly 
as good as those that they have written 
since, but somehow there has not been 
[86] 



KEEP CLOSE TO LIFE 

the same vitality in their later books 
as in their former ones. 

One reason why the sermons of so 
many of our clergymen are tame and 
insipid is because their authors lack 
experience in life. Sermons produced 
in studies are colorless unless the 
preacher during the week has been sat- 
urated with human experience, has 
been in close touch with human life. 
The secret of Beecher's marvelous 
oratorical powers lay largely in his 
keenness of observation. Nothing 
escaped his eye, and he translated 
everything he saw into life and ex- 
pressed it in his sermons. I believe it 
would be a great thing for the churches 
if many of their pastors' studies were 
abolished, and the pastors were forced 
[87] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

to draw their sermons from life, and 
to discard manuscripts. If they could 
give in their sermons the lessons drawn 
from the week's experience, their con- 
tact with life, spontaneously, directly, 
they would electrify their congrega- 
tions. 



[88] 



OBSERVATION AND SELF- 
EXPRESSION 

WE reflect all our life experi- 
ence in our self-expression — 
in our writing or speaking — 
and this self-expression is rich and 
forceful, or poor and weak, according 
to the richness or the poverty of our 
lives. We can only give out that 
which we have taken in, plus what lit- 
tle we have inherited, and our inherit- 
ance is very small in comparison with 
what we have absorbed from life, from 
our training, from experience, what 
has been aroused in us, awakened in 
us, by the attrition of mind with mind. 
A writer of power should be trained 
[89] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

from childhood to see things as they 
are, and to see them in detail. Pro- 
fessor Agassiz used to leave a class for 
an hour observing a single fish scale, 
and then return and ask each member 
what he had seen. 

If you attempt to write a story on 
a subject with which you are unfamil- 
iar, it will lack atmosphere, exactness, 
accuracy; the description will be me- 
chanical, warmed-over, it will not 
breathe life and truth, which can only 
come from personal observation. Un- 
less the writer is a keen observer, un- 
less he has been trained to see things 
accurately and to describe them graph- 
ically his book will be dry and insipid. 
He cannot help spinning out purely 
subjective matter from his own brain 
[90] 



SELF-EXPRESSION 

unless this be constantly fed with a 
stream of rich experience from without 
and close observation of life. All 
writers ought to have the observation 
of Ruskin, who saw a thousand thrill- 
ing beauties in the simplest object in 
nature. To him nature, largely closed 
to most people, was an open book. In 
the commonest weeds by the roadside 
he could see visions of beauty, traceries 
of design which would ravish the soul 
of an angel. Things which failed to 
attract the attention of others, would 
awaken a marvelous response in his 
soul and start trains of the richest 
thought. 

The habit of carrying a notebook 
and treasuring up suggestive, unusual 
things improves the powers of obser- 
[91] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

vation wonderfully. We often won- 
der where some authors find all the 
interesting things they write about. 
They find them because they are al- 
ways on the lookout for them. They 
are always hunting for material. Just 
think how many curious, interesting 
things you have forgotten or lost dur- 
ing your life simply because you did 
not make them permanently yours by 
taking the pains to jot them down! 

Few writers realize what a tremen- 
dous loss they sustain by neglecting to 
hold in some way their flashes of ideas 
that often come like lightning in the 
most unexpected moments, and that 
never come again in just the same 
form. They come fresh-made, clean-cut, 
out of the creative faculties, standing 
[92] 



SELF-EXPRESSION 

out with great clearness, and if you do 
not fashion them with your pen when 
they come or jot them down in a note- 
book so that you can recall them at 
will, the chances are that they will 
never come back to you, certainly not 
with anything like their first vividness 
and distinctness. 

I remember hearing a writer tell 
how, when he was climbing the precipi- 
tous face of an Alpine crag, he was 
seized with an idea which he could not 
afford to lose. When he reached the 
top, he tried to transfer the idea to his 
notebook, but, try as he would, he 
could not reproduce it with the same 
vividness of first inspiration. 

Many writers never carry a note- 
book in their pockets, and oftentimes 
[93] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

their best thoughts, their most strik- 
ing ideas come to them like flashes of 
lightning when they least expect them. 
These may arise from unrecognized 
associations of ideas that may be sug- 
gested to them, or they may have been 
called out of their subconsciousness 
from a suggestion, the source of which 
they cannot trace, but the same con- 
binations, the same conditions which 
produce them are never likely to occur 
again; hence the importance of stop- 
ping short, no matter what you are 
doing, when such revelation flashes 
come, and making them permanent. 
By doing so you will attract more. 

Even if you never write, the notebook 
habit would enrich your life wonder- 
fully, and make you a much fuller, a 
[94] 



SELF-EXPRESSION 

more complete, more worth while man 
or woman. 

A writer ought to have a splendid 
training from childhood, both in ob- 
servation and in the art of self-expres- 
sion. He should be trained in visual- 
izing, in vividly picturing his thoughts 
and ideas. The imagination should be 
constantly encouraged and cultivated 
from earliest years. He should come 
to feel the indomitable necessity of self- 
expression. 

A summer neighbor of mine amazed 
me recently by telling of the great 
variety of birds in our vicinity, and the 
remarkable things which they did. 
This lady is familiar with all the va- 
rieties of birds in that part of the coun- 
try, and she says she picked up most 
[95] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

of her information during her summer 
vacations, when tramping through the 
woods and across the country, and by- 
reading about bird life. I had never 
imagined there were more than a dozen 
different kinds of birds in that vicinity, 
although I had lived in that section for 
years. I had never noticed more, per- 
haps, because I had not been looking 
for them. But this lady kept her eyes 
open ; she was interested in these happy 
feathered creatures and studied them 
at every opportunity. 

We often wonder when reading a 
book how an author could think of 
so many incidents, or how he could 
possibly have had such a varied experi- 
ence. Much of this knowledge has 
come from the author's ability to use 
[96] 



SELF EXPRESSION 

his eyes. He has learned not only to 
look but to see things, and to draw 
inferences and conclusions from his 
observations. 

Agassiz would see more significance 
in a fish scale or a grain of sand, or a 
tiny fossil bone, than many men would 
see in a whole menagerie. Ruskin 
would see more of the real meaning, 
would read more out of a blade of 
grass or a single flower than many 
other people would see in an entire 
landscape. 

A man is great in proportion to the 
use he makes of his senses; to his 
power to see things, to use his eyes, 
his ears. 

When, my young writer friend, you 
think you have gotten all out of a 
[97] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

subject that it contains, that you have 
exhausted its possibilities, just try to 
imagine what Edgar Allan Poe would 
have gotten out of it. Think of the 
long reaches of distance in every direc- 
tion he would have penetrated beyond 
your limits. 

What sort of an interview do you 
think De Voix, the greatest interviewer 
of the last century, would have brought 
back had he been sent to interview 
some great potentate or historic char- 
acter? Go, compare your own efforts, 
your own narrow, limited, uninterest- 
ing article with one of his. 



[98] 



THE CAPACITY FOR TAKING 
PAINS 

WHEN Louisa M. Alcott was 
first dreaming of her power, 
her father handed her a man- 
uscript, one day, that had been rejected 
by James T. Fields, editor of the "At- 
lantic Monthly," with the message: 

"Tell Louisa to stick to her teach- 
ing ; she can never succeed as a writer." 
"Tell him I will succeed as a writer, 
and some day I shall write for the 
'Atlantic,' " said the young girl. The 
day came when work of hers was gladly 
accepted by that magazine. She earned 
two hundred thousand dollars by her 
pen. "Twenty years ago," she wrote 
[99] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

in her diary, "I resolved to make the 
family independent, if I could. At 
forty, that is done. My debts are all 
paid, even the outlawed ones, and we 
have enough to be comfortable." 

The conclusion of "An Old-Fash- 
ioned Girl" was written when Miss 
Alcott's left arm was in a sling, one 
foot bandaged, her head aching, and 
her voice gone. Her splendid will 
knew no defeat. 

The art of expressing one's self on 
paper is one of the greatest accom- 
plishments, but one of the most difficult 
to acquire. Yet people who would not 
think of attempting to play a piano 
in public until they had practised for 
weeks, or even months, will sit down, 
and in a few hours throw off an article, 
[100] 



TAKING PAINS 



send it to a leading publication, and 
then be surprised when it is returned! 

Our great musicians tell us that 
eternal vigilance, eternal practise, is 
the price they must pay for their skill. 
Constant, everlasting mental creation 
is the writer's gymnasium, where he 
must practise daily in order to keep 
his mind athletic, strong and vigorous; 
otherwise, it will lose its productive 
power. 

To attain the power to express your 
heart's longings, your soul's aspira- 
tions, to describe life as you see it, is 
the work of years of hard and persist- 
ent practise, just as musical excellence 
is dependent upon constant application. 

Of all the foolish things that any 
young person can ever do, taking up 
[101] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

writing temporarily, just as a stepping- 
stone to something else, or till they can 
get a better job, is the most foolish. 
You might just as well try to be an 
artist temporarily, or a statesman, 
while you are waiting for a job. In 
the first place, you must be sure that 
you are fit for this work, for journal- 
ists and authors are born, not made. 
If you do not love the work, if it does 
not strike at the very center and mar- 
row of your ambition, if you are luke- 
warm, indifferent, if it seems drudgery 
to you, you have made a mistake, drop 
it at all costs. No man ever succeeds 
in anything until he is proud of his 
work, until it tugs away at every nerve 
of his purpose. If you are not enthu- 
siastic in your work, if you do not 
[102] 



TAKING PAINS 



love it so well that you long to get to 
it in the morning just as quickly as pos- 
sible, and dread the hour for leaving it, 
you may know that you are not born 
to wield the pen. The first test of 
authorship or journalism is an over- 
whelming love for it. If your heart 
is in it, and you work ceaselessly for 
success, you will succeed, but if it is 
a matter merely of mind or judgment, 
you will not make a great success of it. 
Most young writers are too impa- 
tient to take the preliminary drill, to 
learn the fundamental principle which 
underlies all great composition. They 
are too anxious to appear in print; 
they want immediately to see their arti- 
cles under glaring headlines, with their 
name in large letters. 
[103] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

But success in any great art de- 
mands long and patient practise. It 
is related of D'Aubray, the French 
actor, that when he was playing a 
butcher's part in a piece, he rose early 
every morning for weeks to visit the 
markets and watch the butchers cut 
their meats. People who saw him in 
the play wondered at his familiarity 
with the butcher's art. In those early 
morning visits lay the secret. 

The beginning of all vocations that 
are worth while are tedious; full of 
drudgery and perplexities, because 
everything is new and untried. 

What years of patience and drudg- 
ery the ancient masters put into their 
foundations! Then men did not write 
for money but for art's sake. Our 
[ 104] 



TAKING PAINS 



writers to-day are too much in a hurry 
to pay the price in any such pains- 
taking. 

"He was in too great a hurry to take 
pains," would make a splendid epitaph 
for hundreds of failures to-day. 

The editors of many magazines re- 
turn "with thanks" about ninety-nine 
articles and stories out of every hun- 
dred submitted. The young writer 
cannot understand why his article is 
returned, as it seems to him so com- 
plete, so well-balanced, and his fine 
thoughts so beautifully expressed. 
But the experienced editor sees that 
the novice has been writing in a circle; 
he notes the narrowness of experience, 
the paucity of thought, the poverty of 
language, the limitations of vocabu- 
[105] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

lary. He sees how little the writer has 
traveled, how ignorant he is of human 
nature, of the philosophy of life. 
Many of the articles sent to magazines 
would disgrace a high-school pupil. 
They lack style, not to mention con- 
tinuity of thought, and are totally 
without point or purpose. The great 
majority of them lack individuality. 
Incompetence is apparent in every line. 
Good articles are often returned be- 
cause of the bad arrangement of ma- 
terial. While the thought is good, the 
material is not logically arranged and 
blended, so that the current of the 
thought is frequently broken, when it 
should be continuous, thus greatly 
weakening and impoverishing the 
whole. The paragraphs should blend, 
[106] 



TAKING PAINS 



should shade into one another, instead 
of being put together like a crazy quilt, 
with squares of entirely different col- 
ors side by side. 

It is just about as reasonable for the 
writers of such articles to expect to sell 
their wares as it would be for a dry- 
goods merchant to expect to sell goods 
by tumbling them helter-skelter all 
about his store, regardless of order or 
arrangement, with shoes and thread, 
silks and blankets all mixed, on the 
theory that the customer would find 
what he wanted. 

A progressive storekeeper knows 
that an attractive display of goods in 
his store is of immense importance, be- 
cause of the impression it will make 
upon his customers. He will not say 
[107] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

that he has splendid goods and the 
manner of their arrangement will not 
make much difference. On the con- 
trary, he pays a big salary to men of 
artistic ability just to arrange his show 
window in the most effective and strik- 
ing manner. 

Editors are too busy to rewrite ar- 
ticles, no matter how promising the 
material, and so must reject even good 
matter if badly presented. An effec- 
tive writer must have artistic ability. 
He must have a good sense of propor- 
tion, of logical order; he must have a 
good idea of perspective, so as not to 
bring in the foreground a subordinate 
thought which belongs in the back- 
ground, and vice versa. 

There are many canvases that show 
[108] 



TAKING PAINS 



great ability, but the artist did not 
have sufficient patience, was not suffi- 
ciently painstaking to do the little 
things, to give the infinite number of 
little touches, to make the little Mend- 
ings, which characterize the work of 
the great masters. When some one 
told Michael Angelo that his long, 
laborious touching up of his master- 
pieces, after they seemed perfect to an 
amateur, were trifles, he replied, "Yes, 
but trifles make perfection." 

In a great masterpiece we find a 
center, to which all other objects and 
figures on the canvas are subordinated, 
so that if your eye catches any object, 
except that which expresses the central 
idea, it will seem to say to you, "This 
canvas was not painted to show me off ; 
[109] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

I am subordinated here in the perspec- 
tive, in order to emphasize and to bring 
out with greater vividness and promi- 
nence the central thought, the central 
idea. Every figure and object on this 
canvas, outside of that one which ex- 
presses the supreme purpose of the 
artist, is but a signboard pointing the 
beholder to the central figure." 

Literary masterpieces are construct- 
ed in the same way. Many a writer of 
great artistic ability along certain lines 
has fallen short of fame because of his 
lack of perspective and because of his 
disregard of details. 

Young writers attribute Kipling's 
fame to unusual genius. No doubt he 
has a great deal of natural ability, yet 
many of these young writers would 

[ no ] 



TAKING PAINS 



not deign to rewrite a story from eight 
to ten times, as Kipling does, in order 
to express his thought in the most 
forceful, clear and concise manner be- 
fore giving it to the public. They 
expect, without his genius, with a 
tithe of his experience and carefulness, 
to write a story in a few hours, and 
then they feel injured because it is 
returned. 

There are writers to-day whose 
names are only occasionally seen in 
print, who ten years ago were in the 
forefront of the literary world. They 
have dwindled and disappeared because 
they were careless writers. Their early 
success made them over-confident and 
they thought the world was waiting 
for whatever they could produce; so 

cm] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

they wrote anything that came along 
without much consideration, but merely 
to fill the required space, until they 
found both the demand and the price 
for their productions lessening. 

Few people realize the labor with 
which literary success is generally at- 
tained. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 
the famous English wit, left a reputa- 
tion for his bon mots, which seemed 
absolutely impromptu. Yet, after his 
death, looking over his memorandum 
books, it was found that his wittiest 
sayings had been carefully worked up, 
written and rewritten, until they at- 
tained the perfect epigrammatic form 
which made him famous. 

Many a writer would give all of his 
books for Gray's ' 'Elegy" of only a 
[112] 



TAKING PAINS 



few stanzas, but what that "Elegy" 
meant to Gray in work and endeavor 
no one can ever estimate. It was the 
concentration of a life's endeavor. It 
has been the despair of many a writer 
since, for in that "Elegy" he set the 
pace for all the writers that came after 
him. Even the stanzas he excluded 
seem to us as complete and beautiful 
as those which compose the exquisite 
poem. Study his choice and use of 
words. Study Tennyson and Words- 
worth. The restrictions imposed by 
poetry call out the finest efforts of 
the mind. Read Tennyson's "Palace of 
Art," and see how much he expresses 
in a single line. Consider the picture 
painted in the six words, "Lit by a low, 
large moon," all words of one syllable. 
[113] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

How simple the words! How com- 
plete the picture! 

In order to write effectively it is 
necessary to study simple writers. 
Take the Bible, Shakespeare, Bunyan, 
Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Mark 
Twain. Copy sentences from them — 
not for the purpose of imitating, but 
to become familiar with their anatomy. 
Writing has its machinery. Only by 
literal copying can this machinery be 
seen perfectly. When sentences are 
taken apart in this manner their entire 
construction is laid bare. "How whole- 
some," says Walter Pater, "to con- 
sider the bones of the structure!" The 
student sees by analysis how words 
have been transposed to lend force, 
how one or two words have been ma- 
[114] 



TAKING PAINS 



nipulated in a way that makes them do 
duty for five or six or ten. Short cuts 
suggest themselves. Copy prolix writ- 
ing as well. Take the gossip of stilted 
newspaper writers — editorials, "topics 
of the day," "feminine fads and frills." 
This sort of writing is done against 
space, and the object of the writers is 
to make a little thought go a long way 
toward filling a column. The copying 
of such writing is a most excellent les- 
son in "how not," just as the analyzing 
of "Pilgrim's Progress," or the Book 
of Ruth, is a lesson in "how." 

Few young writers are willing to 
pay the price that the master authors 
have paid for their fame — years of 
training and practise, infinite patience 
in mastering the details of their art. 
[115] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

Just as young musicians always want 
to learn a "piece" to play or sing be- 
fore they become grounded in the prin- 
ciples of music and master its tech- 
nique, young writers are always 
anxious to see their writings in print 
before they have mastered the first 
principles of composition. 

Buffon rewrote one of his books 
fifteen times before he would give it 
to the public. De Maupassant toiled 
for seven years under one of the mas- 
ters of French literature before he be- 
came famous as a writer of short sto- 
ries. Every manuscript he submitted 
during that time, his master destroyed. 
Then came a day when he was per- 
mitted to publish a story, and he 
stepped at one stride into the front 
[116] 



TAKING PAINS 



row of authors. Every successful wri- 
ter serves an apprenticeship, and his 
first attempts are frequently returned 
as "unavailable." But some day a 
story is accepted, and the striving 
writer realizes that through all rebuffs 
and discouragements he has been learn- 
ing how to write acceptably to pub- 
lishers and the public. 

When disgusted and discouraged 
and tempted to throw your composi- 
tion into the waste-paper basket, put 
it aside. Many a writer has been 
tempted to throw things into the waste 
basket which have afterward made him 
immortal. The manuscript you now 
condemn may be one of the best you 
have ever written. Wait until you 
can bring to it a fresh mind, a cool, 
[117] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

impartial judgment. I doubt if any 
writer has not been tempted at times 
to throw aside his writings and begin 
anew. Never decide anything of im- 
portance when discouraged, "blue/ 5 or 
tired. The faculties are not then in 
a condition to exercise good judgment. 
They must be fresh, spontaneous, and 
vigorous, or the decision will be de- 
fective. 

Do not be discouraged because your 
manuscript is rejected. Rejected 
manuscripts have made many a writer. 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox says that at the 
beginning of her literary career she 
sent one article to nineteen different 
editors before it was accepted. James 
Whitcomb Riley had a great struggle 
for recognition. It took A. Conan 
[118] 



TAKING PAINS 



Doyle many years to get a foothold. 
This has been the experience of many 
of our greatest and most successful 
writers. 



[119] 



STYLE AND SPIRIT 

MANY writers do not give suf- 
ficient attention to style. They 
think that the main thing is to 
get the thought into the composition, 
to fill it with ideas or sensations, and 
that manner or form requires little 
consideration. They are like people 
who look upon attention to style in 
dress as frivolous, as not in keeping 
with the solid, the substantial; who 
regard those who spend any time in 
improving their appearance as super- 
ficial; they think that style in an au- 
thor is affectation. 

The fact is, style is the soul of 
[120] 



STYLE AND SPIRIT 

writing. It is not mere ornamenta- 
tion, not decoration, not affectation. 
There is a character quality in it. It 
is more than dress to the individual. 
It is a part of the thing itself. 

If a writer disdains style he will 
lack all charm and forcefulness of 
appeal. What superb ability and 
splendid talent are often lost in awk- 
ward, bungling, slipshod expressions! 
It is useless for a would-be writer to 
try to learn the art of portraying things 
if he lacks the artistic sense and the 
ambition to acquire a fine literary 
technique. 

On the other hand, there is such a 
thing as over-straining artistically. 
Some writers strain so hard for ef- 
fect that their writing is unnatural, 
[121] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

cramped, over-done. Woodenness 
spoils many writers who are too pain- 
fully methodical in the construction 
of their sentences, in the arrangement 
of their thoughts, too precise and an- 
gular in their composition. They lack 
flexibleness, limpidity. 

If you try too hard to look pretty, 
you will look ugly. I know women 
who strain so hard to look pretty in 
the photographer's chair that their pic- 
tures turn out to be positively hideous. 
Self-consciousness is one of the wri- 
ter's greatest foes. It keeps him from 
being natural. It makes him stilted. 
The self-conscious person is always 
posing; if he is a writer, he is always 
thinking of the effect of his sentences, 
wondering what people will say or 
[122] 



STYLE AND SPIRIT 

think of his book. We do our great 
things unconsciously. 

Absorption in the theme, spontane- 
ity, naturalness, are imperative to a 
high order of literary production. 

When the musician forgets self, 
there is something in his music that 
awakens the very depths of the soul, 
and you are lifted to a fairer world 
than you ever before knew. When 
the artist forgets himself, his pictures 
are given immortal life, and every 
touch reveals a universe of indescrib- 
able beauty. When the orator forgets 
himself, he speaks as one having au- 
thority, and you inwardly feel that 
every word he says is truth. When 
the writer forgets his personal self 
and the greater interior self is given 
[123] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

full possession of both the mentality 
and the personality — it is then that 
his greatest work is done. It is then 
only that real ability, genuine talent, 
even genius can appear. 

Dead-in-earnestness is a very vital 
quality in a writer. It does not matter 
how large his vocabulary, how elegant 
his style, how painstakingly he balances 
his sentences or turns his paragraphs, 
if he lacks earnestness, absorption, if 
he is hollow-hearted, affected, the 
reader will feel it. 

Many writers sacrifice their ideas 
to smooth English. They lose the 
vigor of statement, robustness of ex- 
pression, the effectiveness they might 
have by trimming too much, trying 
to smooth, to polish their language 
[124] 



STYLE AND SPIRIT 

into a too conventional form. The 
individuality is squeezed out of it. 

A writer or an orator who really 
has something to say "masters the 
English language" in the sense that 
he does not permit it to master him. 

"How many errors did you find in 
this sermon of mine?" asked Mr. 
Beecher of his stenographer. 

"Just two hundred and sixteen," 
was the reply. 

"Young man," said the great 
Beecher, "when the English language 
gets in my way, it does not stand 
much of a chance." 

Young writers ought to study the 
style of a man like Carlyle, who, per- 
haps, went to the other extreme from 
the over-polishers. A really great 
[125] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

writer merely has signs or vehicles to 
convey his ideas to the reader. His 
ideas are larger than the word- vehicles. 
A great writer does not convey his 
thoughts in words that are only half- 
filled with ideas. The words fit the 
ideas; they are filled full to overflow- 
ing. 

Facility of expression is one of the 
most difficult things to acquire. True 
art is to conceal art. The great actor 
must be such a master of his tech- 
nique that you cannot trace any ves- 
tige of effort in his acting. Appar- 
ently, he is absolutely lost in the char- 
acter he assumes. The writer also must 
acquire such a facile pen by long ex- 
perience that the reader cannot dis- 
cern the tracks of his years of hard 
[126] 



STYLE AND SPIRIT 

work. His style and expression must 
seem as natural and easy as his breath- 
ing. 

An author says, "I can paint any 
thought-landscape my brain can pic- 
ture." This writer doubtless has de- 
veloped a rich technique; he commands 
language as an artist controls colors. 
Doubtless, too, he produces while the 
inspiration is active. 



[127] 



COMMERCIALIZATION 

OF THE 

LITERARY PROFESSION 

JOHN OLIVER HOBBS (Mrs. 
Craigie), when lecturing in this 
country, said: "The latter-day 
American writers exhibit a tendency 
toward the slipshod in their work, a 
sacrifice of style in the effort to realize 
the general impression sought to be 
created." 

There certainly is truth in this 
criticism. The rush and strife of our 
strenuous life is undoubtedly reflected 
in the composition of our writers. 

Everything to-day is hurried up. 
Instead of studying the plot or the 
[128] 



LITERARY PROFESSION 

subject for months and years, and 
traveling to get material and atmos- 
phere, many of our writers work from 
hurry-up orders. The book or the arti- 
cle must be finished at such a time. 
The articles must be ready for a cer- 
tain issue of a magazine, or the book 
must meet the demand of the pub- 
lisher. 

The result is that the composition 
of many American writers has the 
tracks of hurry, or nervous haste, in 
it. The average American writer 
thinks comparatively little of style, in 
the sense in which the old English 
writers regarded it. 

The explanation of the difference 
in their viewpoint is evident. The old 
classical writer did not have the great 
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HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

money temptation that the present-day 
writer has. He worked more as the 
masters of painting did — for posterity. 
The love of his work and the desire 
to find in it his immortality was his 
impelling motive, whereas to-day our 
literature is tainted with commercial- 
ism. 

When a modern writer is discussed, 
almost the first question people ask is, 
"What is his income from his writ- 
ings?" Such great emphasis is placed 
to-day upon money that everybody 
thinks he must have it, and if he does 
not have it, he is a nobody. The re- 
sult is that in every profession the 
great struggle is to produce dollars. 
The dollar-marks are all over much 
of our literature and art. Think of 
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LITERARY PROFESSION 

a modern Milton working for years 
upon a poem and selling it for fifteen 
pounds, a modern Oliver Goldsmith 
selling a "Deserted Village" for three 
hundred dollars! Why, some of our 
magazine writers to-day will not put 
a pen to paper for any kind of an 
article for less than five hundred dol- 
lars; some of them a thousand, some 
twelve hundred and fifty — more than 
Emerson's entire income for a year! 

Many writers have a fixed price, so 
much per word. The idea of writing 
for so much a word is all wrong. As if 
quantity could be of more importance 
than quality! Every little while writ- 
ers notify their publishers that there- 
after their prices will be raised to so 
much a word ; then, after a few months, 
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HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

there is notice of another raise. Think 
of estimating in dollars and cents the 
value of an article or story before it 
is written! 

Quality alone should fix the stand- 
ard of compensation. A thousand 
words of one writer may be worth 
more than a thousand of another; or a 
thousand of the same writer in one 
article may be worth more than ten 
thousand of his words in another 
article. 

Now, think of any one trying to 
reach fame and immortality by writ- 
ing on this basis! An artist might as 
well try to fix the price of his master- 
piece before he bought his canvas. If 
he is going to paint his soul into his 
picture, if he is going to put himself 
[132] 



LITERARY PROFESSION 

into it, he cannot tell how long it will 
take him or how much it will be worth 
when it is done. 

It is doubtful whether America can 
produce much literature that will live 
during this money-mad age, when 
everything is measured by the dollar. 

In the golden age of English litera- 
ture, the writer who had produced 
something for immortality, if it were 
no more than a dozen verses, no mat- 
ter how poor or how seedy his clothes, 
no matter if he lived in an attic in 
dire poverty, was a more welcome 
guest upon any important occasion 
than a man, however rich in money, 
who had produced nothing immortal. 



[133] 



THE RESERVE BEHIND 
EXPRESSION 

WHEN a lady was compli- 
menting Turner upon one of 
his wonderful masterpieces, 
he said, touching his forehead: "Ah, 
madam, you ought to see the painting 
in here." When the painter compares 
that ineffable picture, that indescrib- 
able beauty of coloring in his imagi- 
nation with the actual picture he has 
put on the canvas, he feels that he has 
mistaken his calling. The difficulty of 
adequately expressing oneself by the 
painter's brush or the sculptor's chisel, 
or by written words, cannot be fully 
appreciated by those who simply look 
[134] 



EXPRESSION 



at the picture or the statue, or read 
the printed page. But in the artist 
himself imagination is so strong and 
vivid that he sees and feels infinitely 
more than he can express in any tan- 
gible form. He is powerless to trans- 
late into any sensuous form the elu- 
siveness of pure beauty of feeling and 
of thought which enraptures his soul. 

"I wonder if ever a song was sung, 

But the singer's heart sang sweeter! 
I wonder if ever a hymn was rung, 

But the thought surpassed the meter! 
I wonder if ever a sculptor wrought 
Till the cold stone echoed his ardent thought! 
Or if ever a painter, with light and shade, 
The dream of his inmost heart portrayed?" 

Words are so inadequate to express 
the exact shades of thought, at best 
they are such awkward, bungling 
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HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

thought vehicles, that the delicate 
tints, the exquisite shading of ideas, 
are often lost in transit from the writ- 
er's mind to his readers. 

Herbert Spencer says that language 
is inevitably a compromise with 
thought, that we must always reckon 
that no idea can be expressed in words 
without loss. No language is expres- 
sive or delicate enough to convey per- 
fectly our thought or feeling. This 
cannot be done through any material 
media, but only through some species 
of wireless mental transmission or 
telepathy, as in the case of some souls 
who are so closely akin that they al- 
most think in unison. The great, uni- 
versal human emotions transcend in 
their expression all limitations of Ian- 
[136] 



EXPRESSION 



guage. Sarah Bernhardt moves her 
audience to the depths in any part of 
the world, even where people do not 
know a word of French; just as great 
throngs listen with laughter and tears 
to an opera when they do not know 
a word the singers utter. 

When a writer expresses himself 
as truthfully, as feelingly, as fervidly, 
and as richly as possible, the reader 
receives a great deal more from him 
than the mere language conveys. 
There is an overplus of thought, of 
emotions, a deep suggestiveness, be- 
tween the lines. Indeed, the best 
things some writers say are not in their 
actual words, but in the richness of 
their suggestion, in the overrun of the 
words. 

[137] 



HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

No one can ever exhaust the mean- 
ing between the lines of Emerson's 
writings. No matter how many times 
he reads his essays, no one feels that 
he has drawn out all their significance. 
We know that the words themselves 
are only signboards which point us to 
the real thing that Emerson had in 
mind. The words only suggest the 
larger, superber idea which Emer- 
son struggled to convey imperfectly 
through words. It is this reserve 
which we call suggestion in any art. 

There are pictures which you never 
care to look at more than once. They 
may be very pretty, very attractive, 
but you see all there is in them at a 
glance. But you may look at Ra- 
phael's Sistine Madonna or Millet's 
[138] 



EXPRESSION 



Angelus a thousand times, and yet al- 
ways see something new; for you feel 
the great power back of them which 
says infinitely more than is expressed 
in the tints on the canvas. 

The best thing is not what the great 
orator says, but what he makes you 
feel. People who heard Webster and 
Phillips tell us that even in their great- 
est flights of oratory they could not 
help feeling that there was something 
infinitely greater behind what they 
said, that these men had a superhuman 
reserve power and could do marvelous 
things if put to the test. So there 
must be a sense of reserve in all great 
writing. This is the quality which is 
tested by the continued interest which 
a piece of composition calls out in the 
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HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

reader, no matter how many times he 
reads it. 

If you feel, when reading a book, 
that the author has said the greatest 
thing possible to him, you will not be 
impressed with his power; but if the 
matter comes so naturally and so eas- 
ily that it suggests something infinitely 
greater back of it all, then you feel the 
power of the man back of his pen ; you 
know that he has written a great book ; 
that he is a literary artist. 

We get an impression from meeting 
a person which is independent of the 
words he speaks — a subtle something 
which radiates from his person, his 
manner, his character. It is said that 
people who saw Lincoln, even though 
they did not hear him speak or know 
[140] 



EXPRESSION 



who he was, felt somehow that they 
were in the presence of a great man. 

Just so, there is an indescribable at- 
mosphere about a great book w r hich is 
not in the words, but in that which it 
makes the reader feel. There is some- 
thing in every author's writings which 
eludes analysis, but which the reader 
feels, just as he feels an impalpable 
emanation from the presence of a man 
whom he meets face to face. 

It is not so much what the great 
writer says as what he shows you, what 
he makes you feel. You walk with 
him on the mountain tops and he gives 
you a glimpse of beauty which fas- 
cinates you. He allows you to look into 
the unfathomable depths of thought; 
a sense of unutterable wonder over- 
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HINTS FOR YOUNG WRITERS 

whelms you, though he cannot himself 
express to you all you feel. 

The immortal writer and artist 
are merely mediums for omnipotent 
power to work through. We make 
the connection with this power through 
the mind when we read their books, 
through the eyes when we behold their 
masterpieces, and we feel the divine 
thrill, the immortal shock of our con- 
tact with it. 

This suggestive or reserve power 
behind the artist, be he painter, poet, 
musician or writer, is a highly compo- 
site man. A great self-mastery — a 
powerful concentration — a marvelous 
life-focusing ability — must be back of 
it all. There are a hundred elements, 
countless rich experiences, remarkable 
[142] 



EXPRESSION 



gifts of nature, which go to make up 
this reserve. 

His own "composite man" is every 
person's genius. The greater the writ- 
er's personality, the greater the work 
he will produce. Out of the richness 
of his own life, his knowledge, his 
sympathy, his earnestness and courage 
for hard work, his ability to feel and 
express the pulsing life all around him, 
must his creations come. If you would 
be a writer, say the biggest thing you 
have in you to say; say it with all your 
might, feeling no sacrifice too great 
for the realization of its expression; 
overflow your words with the reserve 
of your soul. Then you will have given 
your best, and your writings will live. 



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